of her dressmaker. A gown of
smooth black cloth clung to her vast form without a wrinkle, sombre,
severe, giving her a kind of slenderness in stoutness. She wore a white
lace vest and any quantity of lace ruffles, any number of little black
velvet lines and points set with paste buttons. And every ruffle, every
line, every point and button was an accent, emphasising some beauty of
her person.

And Anne looked at Lady Cayley once and no more.

It was enough. The trouble that she had put from her came again upon her,
no longer in its merciful immensity, faceless and formless (for she had
shrunk from picturing Lady Cayley), but boldly, abominably defined. She
grasped it now, the atrocious tragedy, made visible and terrible for her
in the body of Lady Cayley, the phantom of her own horror made flesh.

A terrible comprehension fell on her of that body, of its power, its
secret, and its sin.

For the first moment, when she looked from it to her husband, her mind
refused to associate him with that degradation. Reverence held her, and
a sudden memory of her passion in the woods at Westleydale. Mercifully,
they veiled her intelligence, and made it impossible for her to realise
that he should have sunk so low.

Then she remembered. She had known that it was, that it would be so,
that, sooner or later, the woman would come back. Her brain conceived a
curious two-fold intuition of the fact.

It was all foreappointed and foreknown, that she should come to this
hateful house, and should sit there, and that her eyes should be opened
and that she should see.

And the woman's voice rose again. "Do I see cucumber sandwiches?" said
Lady Cayley. "Dick, go and tell Mr. Majendie that if he doesn't want all
those sandwiches himself, I'll have one."

Ransome gave the message, and Majendie turned to the lady of the settee,
presenting the plate with the finest air of abstraction. Her large arm
hovered in selection long enough for her to shoot out one low quick
speech.

"I only wanted to see if you'd cut me, Wallie. Topsy bet me two to ten
you wouldn't."

"Why on earth should I?"

"Oh, on earth I know you wouldn't. But didn't I hear just now you'd
married and gone to heaven?"

"Gone to----?"

"Sh--sh--sh--I'm sure she doesn't let you use those naughty words. You
needn't say you're not in heaven, for I can see you are. You didn't
expect to meet me there, did you?"

"I certainly didn't expect to meet you here."

"How can you b